"It's just one of these things that had been likely brewing for years, and for whatever reason it happened at this point in time," Gounder said on "CBS This Morning."
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She said the tributes to her late husband are touching and bring her comfort.
"He was so loved by so many people," she said, and hearing the outpouring "is like a warm hug when you really need it."
Wahl, a longtime college basketball and soccer reporter for Sports Illustrated and for his own newsletter, collapsed while covering Friday's Argentina-Netherlands match and was later declared dead. He was 49.
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He had covered soccer for more than two decades, including 11 World Cups - six men's, five women's -- and authored several books on the sport, according to his website.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an aortic aneurysm is a balloon-like bulge in the aorta -- the large artery that carries blood from the heart to the chest. A rupture is caused when the force of blood pumping can split the layers of the artery wall allowing blood to leak. In a rupture, the aneurysm bursts completely, causing bleeding inside the body.
The CDC says aortic aneurysms or dissections caused about 10,000 deaths in 2019. About 59% of those deaths were among men.